I had the pleasure of speaking to Jocke the bassist from Paranoid about the band and the new album:

What inspired the formation of the band?

– The plan was that me and Åke would’ve recorded with our other band called “Desperat”. Lack of inspiration, and that I just got home from a funeral, made it not feel right. I needed to clear my mind and process my grief in a more violent and distorted way to fill that void. Paranoid was born.

Where do you draw your influences from?

– From everywhere, and inspiration and influences comes from different sources every day. Am taking notes and ideas in everyday life, but also from books and movies. It’s the same thing when it comes to the musical part Different influences, different days. But pretty much everything from John Coltrane to Strebers, back to Iron Madien and beyond… Another good example, just two weeks ago I witnessed this live ritual by “Ultra Silvam”. Their sound, approach and stench made a great impact on me. It’s long time ago something affected me like that. Which I will of course use as inspiration and input for upcoming shows and recordings in one way or another.

How do you approach song writing?

– Both I and Henrik write all the material at home, on our own. Then we show and learn the others what we have in the practice room. Most of the time we try out ideas and versions of the riffs and arrange the songs together as a band. But on our last two rehearsals this last week we’ve spontaneously done two songs out of nothing.

What songs are you looking forward to performing live from the new record?

– We’ve actually already played half of the songs from the album live. But I would love to add both “復讐 (Fukusyuu)” and “侵略来たれり (Shinryaku Kitareri)” to future setlists cause I really like the riffs and the melodies on those songs.